Migration (New Poem)

The flat near Longford Park

Is still a huge mystery

And got demolished shortly

After you moved.

You don’t remember much

About Moss Lane East

Apart from that one winter there

When the boiler kept breaking down

Reducing the window

To floods of tears.

You only remember

That first spring at Barton road

When your football shot

Smacked your sister that hard

In the face

It left that much blood

On the pavement

Your mother must have used

Twenty buckets of water

To wash it out.

By the time your brother arrived

You had moved a little up the road

And within a week of moving in

Ended up going to your nana’s funeral

And didn’t shed a tear during it

But didn’t stop during the wake.

Ripon Road where two of your cats

Are buried, is less happy

As is that flat on Fountains Road

Where you lived temporary

Before mould became

A permanent, unwelcome guest.

Chatsworth Road

Where you lived into your 20’s

And beyond

Is painted with much

Happier, wider brush strokes

Even though it was opposite

Your old high school

That also expelled your brother.

Now of course

You live in a different town

With memories

Like sails in the mist

Bleeding over the sunset,

Etched in the past

Like closed factories

Windswept in a wordless language.

(Inspired by Paul Auster's Winter Journal)